Jan Tratnik is the daughter of a newspaperman and the great-granddaughter of a post-Civil War photographer. As a child, Jan often accompanied her father to the newspaper’s production facility where she watched the papers come streaming off the press. It was a huge and exciting world of ink, paper, and pictures. Those vivid and stark images of photojournalism that so impressed Jan at an early age would form the foundation of her later work.
Jan is drawn to the classic aspects of monochrome photography; she shoots primarily in monochrome, which allows focus on the interplay of light and shadow in its purest form – the “evocative essence of the image.” For decades, Jan has travelled the world capturing scenes in diverse cultures. From Chicago and New York, Beijing and Bangkok, Mumbai and Mexico City, London and Istanbul, in these and other cities around the world, Jan has walked the streets with camera in hand.
Jan is drawn to the classic aspects of monochrome photography; she shoots primarily in monochrome, which allows focus on the interplay of light and shadow in its purest form
Her work is consistently recognized in one of the most prominent world-wide competitions, the Lucie Foundation International Photography Awards, and by Monochrome and Monovision, two of the foremost digital platforms for black and white photography, and in the première photography publication Black & White magazine. Jan’s images have appeared in travel magazines and exhibited in numerous venues. Jan trained in photography at the American Academy of Art and the former Ray Vogue School of Design and has continued to extend her learning over decades.